Snippets

So yesterday Sebastian looked at my rowdy coiffure and said, “Um, Mom? I think it’s time you go back to Jamie Lee Curtis hair.”

“What’s the matter, kiddo? Not a fan of the curls? Or do you just miss my pointy hair?” He flapped a hand that could mean anything (therefore: nothing) and didn’t answer.

He’s currently sporting a wacky thatch of his own but has a two-day shoot this week playing a Confederate soldier and his shaggy head is period appropriate. He’s hoping to get a cut next week from costuming since that gig is set present day and he’s playing a frat boy. Seb inherited my tight-fistedness and if he can score not only a free haircut but one he actually gets paid for you know my cheap son is all over that action. Besides getting a gig specific haircut from wardrobe is soothing to him. It’s reassuring to look the part so properly.

Yes, if you haven’t twigged it by now, cameras are rolling again. TWO Covid tests per gig! My kid is dragging his butt to Brooklyn every other day to be swabbed. I’m grateful safety is being taken seriously. Beside the double-negative Covid requirement Sebastian told me masks go back on the second they call “Cut!” At craft service all the foodstuffs are wrapped. The bathrooms have attendants who disinfect between users. And the waiting pen is socially distanced as possible. I am so pleased Sebastian is working on set again! As the quarantine months ticked along and acting seemed further and further out of reach he got quieter and sadder. Unless Q came up. Then there was shouting.

Do any of you remember Sebastian’s friend Mack? Since the fourth grade they were friends. We did our best but a part-time borrowed family can only do so much against chaos at home. Mack’s miserable parents destroyed that kid. After graduation Mack drifted. Bad, bad relationships. Drugs. A short stay at the county stone hotel. Charismatic Christian ‘saving’ that lasted a few weeks. More drugs. Then finally Q. No love (tough or otherwise) could reach him this time. No holy writ except Q and the convoluted fever dreams of the faithful. Seb plead and cried and raged. He read facts and pointed out absurdities. He begged Mack to come home to us. It ended a couple days before Christmas when Mack sadly but also somehow proudly told his lifelong friend he was truly sorry we were going to die. We’d been good to him but the coming conflagration would only spare the righteous. The ones who knew Trump was the warrior sent by God to clean America of its vermin. Q said so.

No idea where Mack is now. Or what he’s doing. Of course I watched the insurrection many times just looking for Mack. Don’t know what I’d do if I had spotted him. Moot point. Mack is gone gone. Sebastian is heartbroken and one horribly painful step forward toward the truth that no matter how much and how hard and how healthy your love is sometimes the demons win anyhow.

A long time ago when I was someone else’s wife and I lived a different life I spoiled a beloved book by rereading it at the wrong time. I picked up that cherished tale when I was sour and cynical and lonely and kinda angry and reading it with that lousy attitude absolutely RUINED it. I could see every contrivance. Every time I’d cried before was simply the author’s manipulation and now that I was seeing it so clearly I was outraged by how clumsy that tear duct massage was. Never was able to read it again with any pleasure. The book was blown. Kaput. It had wrecked itself on the jagged parts of my mind. I vowed to never ruin dear things ever again. At least by reading/watching at the wrong time or with a jaundiced lens.

“Yeah, and? Wait, what are you telling us?”

I’m saying that at the start of the quarantine I put away my best beloveds lest they become attached to this scary odd time and be forever tainted. Not just my best beloveds. Actually I set aside ALL of my constant life companions. Every book. Every song. Every movie. Even some of my clothes. The future had to have those best-est things in it and I couldn’t risk any of them. Perhaps it sounds dopey or even masochistic to go into lockdown without my stuff. Probably it was, but who knew it would be a year? More than a year. I can see I won’t get paroled until summer. Late summer.

(Let’s speak a bit about vaccine distribution. Every state is receiving the same exact amount of doses. Great thinking. You know how many people live in New York State? 19.46 million. You know how many people live in Wyoming? 569, 013. You know how many people live just in my county? 408,944. But by all means vaccinate everyone in Wyoming. Every single one of those gun-toting, anti-science, no mask ‘Mericans! should get vaccinated first! I’ve been in my goddamn house for a year, what’s 6 or 7 months more? *sob of despair*)

Anyway. Without my usual pals I’ve gotten creative about entertainment and my escapes. I never went the sourdough route though I very much appreciate the satisfaction of it. Equal parts science and magic. Plus kneading dough is fabulous. So relaxing.

Kudos to all the creators during this weird year. I was struggling to remember to brush my teeth for most of it. No quilts or victory garden. My house is still full of crap. And I’m okay with that. I’m here. My guys are here. Ivy the cat made it too. Not too shabby. I’m speaking as though the pandemic is over, trust me I know it’s not. All protocols are still in place. However I am a teeny bit hopeful.

Many, many of you understand how stuck one can get when every day is the same. It’s always Blursday and how long have I been wearing this bathrobe anyhow? To see a wee crack in the discouraging blur? A distant but real confirmation this will end? It’s sweeter than the peanut butter M&Ms I’ve been living on.

I’m still waiting to watch ‘Wizard of Oz’ for the 100th time. I was saving it for Election Day and Biden’s win. But when that didn’t spring clear I waited for the Electoral College. And still no joy. Then came the insurrection and like after 9/11 I swung between fury and heartbreak. I sort of got it together in time for my birthday but honestly cannot remember if I managed to get dressed. Now I’m waiting for my shots. Even if the second dose lays me out for a bit the reward for finally being vaccinated will be the centennial ‘WoZ’.

My attention is still too fractured to read much. Mostly I watch YouTube. No. I don’t merely watch it, I inhale it. I open my brain and in floods everything! Then I sieve it through my mind’s baleen. Make a sword from an old camshaft? Sure! BASE jumping from Angel Falls? Okay. 20 minutes of dogs farting and waking themselves up? Absolutely. How-to demos. Histories. Top 10s. Epoxy carving and paint pouring. Dollhouses. Goat herding in Albania. I’m sure you get it. Anything that isn’t too difficult or too long I stuff into my brain like I am fattening it for the kill. Or maybe I’ll go kick serious ass at trivia night when McManus’s starts having it again. If they do.

Let me know if you’re interested in my favorites. I’m happy to drum up some traffic for all the generous souls who post videos and saved my sanity.

Delighted to find some words. Much love, ~LA

Dec 2

A very short and quiet day.

Slept for 13 hours and got through the worst of this cold. My voice is back. I can breathe much easier. Rather leery of going out because my cough is harsh, loud, and phlegmy. I wouldn’t blame anyone who heard it if they screamed and ran away trailing Lysol spray in their wake. This cough sounds dangerous but it’s honestly how I always cough. Always. As a wee one, maybe 4 (?), I remember the pediatrician asking me to cough, flinching the stethoscope from his ears and asking my mother why I wasn’t in a tuberculosis clinic already. Heh. This basso honking whoop sounds like a cross between a seal’s bark and the noise a donkey might make if whacked in the nuts. When I still smoked I’d get frustrated because I forever got hit with the smug, “You wouldn’t sound like that if you quit!” Yeah? That’s what you think, Smuggy McSmuggerson!”

It’s almost 7 years, btw, since I quit smoking. Cannot remember the last time I whacked a donkey in the nads.

Quitting cigarettes was THE most miserable experience of my life. (And I’ve been on a rush hour subway in August.) Discussed my quit-a-versary recently with my love of life and how confused I am when people who’ve quit for years decide to start smoking again. Really? You went through all that to be free from demon nicotine and you’re voluntarily going back? Why? It’s not like I don’t ever WANT a cigarette. Just the other day Mick and I were out doing the things and traffic was awful, the weather was shit, Mick was aggravated, and my stress was high enough my eyeballs were vibrating in their sockets. Damn, I wanted a butt. I could feel the tension soothing, synapse firing sweetness of a Virginia Slim entering my bloodstream from that first delicious drag. Truly I know what I’m missing. But I am free and I am never going back. (Though check back if there’s Plague 2.0, climate change gets so scary I have crocodiles instead of chipmunks in my yard, and (no!) something awful happens to Mick. Because, why not, eh?)

At my honey’s urging I purchased my Christmas present. I am virtually attending the world premiere of The Try Guys movie!!!!

I dream of someday scoring a gig as an honorary Try Mom.

It’s a tour doc. Zach had the foresight to hire a camera crew to follow them start to finish. Planning, traveling and performing, and recovering from their 2019 tour. I am hella stoked for the Try Guys cinema verite. It’s a fabulous genre. Metallica’s ‘Some Kind of Monster’ is high on my favorite documentaries list. There’s something stripped down about a fly on the wall doc, especially when its eye is trained on a group of creatives who’ve shared A LOT of history. It just rivets me. I’m not surprised it was Zach who thought to film it, he’s an even more hardcore movie fan than I am and understands the story that’s always there waiting to be teased out from the chaos if you catch it as it happens. (Metallica fave? Lars. Of course. Drummers with sharp business sense and ethics? Yesplease. Thankyouverymuch.)

Why the Try Guys? Aren’t I about 40 years too old for their target demographic? I guess so. But so what? I have a son around their age and it’s comforting to be with them since I can’t be with Alex. What are 30-something men thinking about? What are their priorities? What has their emotional growth been like? Besides, the guys are kind and decent and really, really funny. What’s not to like?

Each of the guys is admirable and adorable in his own way. YouTube and Instagram are weirdly intimate and even curated and monetized as they are there are some things that can’t be faked in such close-up videos. If they weren’t good guys it would show. I wonder about their families, especially their SO’s, and how they feel about all this. Shanghaied into a VERY public life is a rough go no matter how much you love and support your mate. This is my main reason for cutting First Ladies a huge break. (Yes, even Melania.) On their wedding day nobody signs up for the stress, lack of privacy, forfeiture of freedom, indecent and constant criticism, and even danger that comes with being the President’s spouse. And the Try Guys don’t have the Secret Service to keep the loons at bay either. The world has only gotten weirder since Robert Bardo murdered Rebecca Shaeffer for not being his girlfriend as he imagined from ‘My Sister Sam’. Like any mom I fret over my internet sons and their family’s safety.

Perversely I am delighted the premiere is at Keith and Becky’s new house. Can’t wait to see it. I empathize with Keith’s hesitation to talk about this great good thing in his life because he knows how many of the viewers are really struggling right now and it seems gross to show off. Not ashamed so much as discrete. Noblesse oblige, but sincere.

I hope Seb will have the same kind of graciousness if lightning strikes and he blows up from a project.

*Currently appearing in HBO’s ‘The Undoing’ as a journalist in the courtroom scenes and in the newsie scrum on the courthouse steps. And ‘Antarctica’ on Apple+. My nice son plays a vile jerk and at a recent drive-in screening he got to ask the director why he’d chosen him. I liked director Keith Bearden’s answer. He said he chose Sebastian because he didn’t radiate ‘douche’. The film’s theme or premise, feh, the point is how fiercely societal norms are policed. Even an obvious nice guy like Sebastian will devolve into a dickhead to maintain the status quo.

I don’t entirely agree with Keith’s view, but I am grateful my son got a meaty bit part and got to play against type.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6235644/mediaviewer/rm3604262401/

My goodness! Don’t I sound like Mama Rose! No, after being so tone deaf all of Alex’s life and then being a bitey wounded bitch after his bid for freedom I’ve truly worked toward jettisoning the most poisonous of my residue so I sincerely hope I’m not trading on my kid’s status to bolster my own.

Taking a bow. Blowing a kiss. ~LA

Dec 1

Hello, my darlings.

I know myself well enough not to over-promise so officially joining the Holidailies is out. However I am really keyboard constipated and putting out a daily shortie might help. I think it’s the same mindset as NaNoWriMo in that I should put my pointy little head down and just WRITE but less apt to wander into the darker parts of my brain as NaNo always does. Writing straight fiction freaks me right the hell out. This is not to say that when telling a story I don’t buff things up or selectively edit sometimes. Mostly to make a bigger impact, get a bigger laugh, or scoop a mess into a tidy pile, but straight up fiction? Nope.

(Btw, I couldn’t find a single picture of a woman holding an audience in thrall.)

This is how I think of myself. A witty storyteller. The stories are polished in the retelling and occasionally a pooper will interrupt with, “Hey! That’s not how it happened, get it right!” but for the most part the tales I tell are true (ish) enough and always told from my perspective. Probably even more than my fear of the ugly stuff lurking in my brain what limits writing ‘pure’ fiction is my inability to fully inhabit anyone else. Even people I made up. The cliche applies – wherever I go there I am.

“But, LA, that’s what ALL writers do! All their characters are really just pieces of themselves dressed in costume.”

Perhaps. But I cannot put on a 15 year old’s costume and tell her story with any sort of truth. Unless there’s a teenager out there who thinks and sounds exactly like a 57 year old white lady. I know this is why I find other people so interesting. And why I insist on asking nosy questions. I’m just me in here, please tell me about you. The one thing I wish I could communicate better is how little judgement and disapproval come with my questions. The fear of being laughed at or scorned are things everybody struggles with so I get it when my questions are rebuffed but smacking folks for being who they are is so not my gig.

For instance? Okay. You tell me you love wearing ruffly underpants. Be you a 6 year old girl or a 60 year old retired NFL player I’m down and will ask you about your favorite pair or if they get sweaty when you wear jeans. I am not secretly thinking you are defective and a weirdo and should be stoned in the village square. Why would I? It’s your bod, dress it as you will. About the only reason I will chide or challenge someone is if they are being cruel. Especially if they are being cruel to themselves. (Several of you have been on the receiving end of this and know whereof I speak.) Life is so damn hard, why make it harder deliberately?

Yesterday Mick and I were on the porch and he started fretting about the future as he does…A LOT. Funnily we had just been talking about all the different careers he and I have rolled through so when he got all zizzed about Sebastian’s future I cracked up. “Sweetie, sweetie, STOP. Getting whacked out over what our kid will be doing at age 60 is beyond silly. He will be fine.” Mick demanded to know how I could say that. Acting? Video production? Working at the grocery warehouse? GAH!!!! As gently as I could I asked, “And this time last year did you know a pandemic was coming to shut the world down? No. We were holiday shopping and you were bitching about going to your sister’s and I was happy dancing over having the last stent removed. Not one inkling over what 2020 would actually be like. So sha. Who knows what life will bring? Best any of us can do is deal with the present and leave the future to the future.”

Sebastian and I do talk about the future, of course. But insisting he have a complete Life Plan? No way. Right now he’s taking classes in his field, saving for his SAG card, updating his pics at Central Casting and a few of the smaller agencies, and trying not to go bonkers from frustration and boredom. When the world opens up again he’ll reassess and go from there. I promised to bite him on the butt and shove him out of the nest as needed.

If nothing else the pandemic has helped solidify my belief in living in the now. Not foolishly as though nothing matters, but truly accepting what I do and don’t have control over. Like how I never, never, ever drive while impaired. And not just booze or weed. Anything. Being too tired. Cold medicine. Or even crying too hard. No phone EVER. No texting. Nada. My conscientiousness is good, but it won’t prevent me from getting creamed by someone who doesn’t take driving clean as seriously as I do. Some texting knucklehead might T-bone me tomorrow. (And just might from what I see on the road all the time.) I cannot control others but I have the freedom to choose what I do.

*stepping onto soapbox*

Freedom. How did this get twisted so badly?

My choices cannot, MUST not have a negative impact on people who get no say in the matter. I am not free to pollute. It’s not just MY air, water, and land. I do not get to choose to dump toxic shit even on my own property. Things always leach out. To do so limits someone else’s freedom. To drink water free from MY contaminants is their right. I do not have the freedom to jaunt off in my car after knocking back some shots. My lack of judgement and impaired reflexes cannot deny others safe passage on the shared road. By the same reasoning I should not and MUST not choose whether someone else gets exposed to a potentially lethal pathogen. Who am I to have that kind of power over your life?

Yet this obvious truth is ignored by those who’d be the FIRST to go off if I pulled down my pants and took a dump on the sidewalk in front of their house. Out they’d boil screaming about how they shouldn’t have to see my bare butt! My poop is on the sidewalk that they have to use! Yeah? And? Don’t like it? Don’t look. Don’t want shit on your shoes? Don’t step in it. Why should I care about your issues? It’s my God given right to crap on the sidewalk! FREEDOM, motherfucker, FREEDOM!

Right? How idiotic does that sound? And yet this is exactly the dipshit rebuttal made by the anti-maskers, gun toters, anti-vaxx, anti-science, anti-manners, anti-decency crowd. Nothing new in this, I simply needed to put it out there so I can stop choking on it.

Ha! By giving myself permission to post a shortie I relaxed enough to go long. I am so easy to misdirect.

Stay well, my dear ones. Better times are coming. ~LA

Yummy in My Tummy

The turkey is out.

Yes, yes, the one in the White House too, but I am talking actual turkey. Seb brought one home the other night and jammed it into the freezer. A gift from his employer so I assumed it was a decent 12-14lbs. Nothing extravagant. HA! I wrestled an absolute BEAST out of the freezer this morning. 20+lbs and rock solid. Our wee Thanksgiving will be hilarious with 5 pounds of turkey for each. Mick could do it, but he doesn’t really care for turkey. Frankly I am the only one who really, really likes turkey in our fam, which ticks me off because even when they’re not free a turkey is an inexpensive protein and I could surely use more main dish items that cook once and eat five times. Plus there’s sandwiches.

Okay. I confess…it’s really the leftover turkey sandwiches I adore. I have, on occasion, served the dinner absurdly early just to get it over with so I could have my first ambrosial turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich before it even got dark. Which, if you’re boring, raises the question of why don’t I make a turkey just to make sandwiches from? Because. Because if the turkey and cranberry sauce aren’t really leftover it just isn’t right. And if you don’t get that you have no romance in your soul and I am sorry for you.

This meal, and only this meal, is the one where I decide the menu just for me. Once a year I knock my own socks off with my cooking. It’s not a swanky menu. Nor is it complicated. No bacon-wrapped chestnuts dipped in foie gras. But it’s good, you know? The addition of roasted jacket sweet potatoes in the aughts is typical since I deftly killed any nutritive value with brown sugar and lashings of butter. (And can I add here if you’re one of those killjoys bent on making Thanksgiving dinner healthy you can fuck the hell off? Yes. Yes I can. ’11 ways to reduce your dinner to tasteless mess that leaves everyone unsatisfied and hangry.’ Piss off. People who won’t eat crescent rolls get no say. Especially at Casa Sage.)

I mentioned our ‘wee’ Thanksgiving up there. It’s also our normal Thanksgiving. Just us and MIL. Mick’s sister owns Christmas and I don’t mind. It’s fun at Tam’s when there’s a crowd. And there always is because Tam’s husband has SEVEN siblings, everybody has been divorced and remarried – steps, halfs, common-law, and ex-but-still-family people abound. Plus friends. The kids are ageing up and bringing spouses and kids of their own now so Christmas is chaos and hella happy. Or was. This year will be very quiet. But that’s for later, right now I’ve got the munchies and am talking about fooooood. And Thanksgiving.

Once again I am at odds with most of America in that my holiday won’t change a bit. Right down to the ritual of taking MIL home the extra-extra long way so we can look at all the Christmas lights that have appeared as if by magic while we ate. My ardent pleas that everyone curtail their get-togethers for safety’s sake echo back, “Easy for you to say.” And maybe it is, but I am not wrong. If this holiday is truly about being thankful for family and friends then don’t we owe it to them and ourselves not to be stupid and unsafe for the sake of ‘tradition’?

STAY HOME.

Please.

I don’t want to see a lot of this popping up on my friends’ feeds a couple weeks from now.

“LA, we were patient while you rambled about turkey, but if you don’t get to the election right now there will be cursing in the comments and since many of us are witches that means way worse than some coarse language. Hop to it, sister.”

Fine. You wanna hear my take on recent politics? Here goes…

• The media needs to stop. Just stop indulging the fantasies of a loser.
• The less than wonderful results of down-ticket races are a slap in the face. And a stark reminder that a substantial portion of American citizens are having real trouble grasping reality. Wishing is NOT a magic entitlement to stupidity, hatred, and the decimating of American law.
• As of today Nov 23 the citizens of Georgia have 10 days to check on their voter’s registration and register anew. Maddening and sadly unsurprising voter registrations are being ‘purged’ as in if you are a Black woman in GA you’d best be on it because the GOP has erased you. Please check, repair as needed, and VOTE in the run-offs. And thank you for saving our asses AGAIN.
• Thanks to my wonder nose I am starting to smell blood in the water. Afraid for their hides the cowardly jackals of the federal GOP are sensing danger and retreating in reverse order away from the charge of being ‘un-American’. Low level Congressional reps first. Trump apparatchiki are stunned but it’s dawning on them after Jan 20 their orange lord is moot. Ring! Ring! “Prime minister’s office.” Buzzzz “Minister, Donald Trump is on line 2.” “Bwahahahahahaha! Hang up. And please don’t bother me again with that useless fool.”
• Just as there was no widespread violence from the militias after the election I honestly believe the majority of the Trumpsters will slink away muttering and go back to harassing their neighbors over grass length and parking spaces. They will gleefully use power washers and chainsaws at 7:00 am and quote chapter and verse all the town ordinances about ‘undue noise’ if someone complains. Back to the everyday assholes they always were and not a danger to democracy any more.

This, however, doesn’t mean I am willing to forget or forgive. I honestly hope I get to say, “You lost. Get over it, snowflake!” Beyond my own petty gratification I am desperate for Biden to come out swinging. My little atheist heart still asks the universe for balance. Win Georgia, defang the filibuster, and take that slim but definite majority for a thrill ride. Ram cram through a flood of progressive legislation. Green New Deal. New New Deal. Wipe out student debt. Offer free secondary education. And true government sponsored healthcare. Demilitarize the police and make meaningful changes to their role in a free society. Offer support and other resources so cops aren’t the one answer to every problem. Put scientists in charge again at every critical slot in government and industry. Repeal or overturn, whatever it takes, and get rid of Citizens v United. Drive a stake of sane ethics right through its malignant heart. I’m willing to forgo term limits for effective campaign finance reform and putting a muzzle on lobbying. Also let’s board up the Congress to lobbyist tunnel forever. Thankyouverymuch.

The thing I’ve always found odd is how everything I just said is supposedly hopelessly utopian. Absurdly naive. The kind of dippy floof talk that gets one an indulgent pat on the head. Yet it was that very mindset – the belief everyone has intrinsic worth and is due respect from the get-go which has always driven social reform. Personally I am soul weary from having to base so many of my decisions on how much bullshit can I deal with that day. From nay-sayers, trolls, the smirking ‘devil’s advocates’, and indignant ignorant I am dismayed, aggrieved, but mostly bored.

Can we take a break from catering to cretins? Enough already. Trump lost. Let’s get on with life at the grown-ups’ table. Throw in some decency and mercy just for chucks too. Put climate crisis at the front of the agenda as well as the pandemic and let’s try to sort our physical world in tandem with all the other work that needs doing.

Hey, a girl can dream.

Floofy in more ways than one, ~LA

Comfy Eye Socks

My day started with a bing and a bang. The former- a text from my sister, the latter- my ex-husband crashing around out back.

Look, the whole point of quarantine is protecting oneself from other people and their illnesses. And those two? Waking me up? Ye gods.

The ex? The ex is the ex is the ex. Ever’n’ever, selah. Him I could put aside because if he needed to speak to me while he was here he’d have texted. He’d do his thing and be on his way. No harm.

My sister on the other hand is…is…gah.

One of the ways Gidget and I have always rubbed each other raw is about principles. I have some. She thinks I’m too harsh on people and I think she’s an accommodating asshole who apologizes for her ‘too hard’ face hurting the hand of the guy who’s just given her one across the chops.

I’ve gotten so much shit for being a victim and a doormat and (my fave) ‘a semi-professional whiner’ but I am the fucking Colossus of Rhodes in my family. Gidget’s Libra need to please and the amount of denial and dishonesty required to participate in her kawaii fantasy life is too much. Always has been. You know what? Even that I could deal with in short bursts to be decently present in each other’s lives, but it’s her insistence on treating me as if I am a psycho anger bomb that instantly sets my teeth on edge. Her tsking and jolly chiding that I not go off and that I should understand ‘their side’ and the roundtable amusement of everyone else is maddening.

I refuse to be condescended to by a ditz with uneven breast implants and a spine made of fluffer-nutter. Her life is a mess. I won’t go into it because why bother. It’s her mess, her drama, and I was already socially distancing as hard as I could anyhow. Then I get a text this morning inviting me to her birthday party on Friday.

Do not “Aw, that’s sweet” at me! Do NOT.

Is my sister’s party on Zoom? No. Is it a barbeque at a park with plenty of open space and fresh air? No. My sister, the brainchild, has planned a wonderfully intimate dinner for many at a hibachi steak house. Cousins! Several cousins! From Westchester! And Rockland! And even Long Island! By all means, let’s see who we can dig up from Crown Heights too, just to completely box the COVID compass from NYC. And now let us gather the multitudes at the ceremonial griddle table where everyone sits with mouths open waiting for spatula shrimps and breathing on everyone’s food! How? How could I possibly turn down an invite like this?

See what I mean? She’s an idiot. Who arranges a party like this during an epidemic? And yet somehow I am the wrong one. The one who is being touchy. I didn’t even insult her birthday coronafestival, I simply said no, thank you. Quarantine. Hope you have a great time. See you when it’s safe. Her stiff reply was basically this:

Let’s unpack a bit, eh?

Is my sister aware I had to forfeit my job to be safer during this contagion? The sacrifices my husband and son have made to not bring anything home to me and my shit immune system, crappy kidney, and glow-in-the-dark nose from cancer treatment? Possibly, but it’s always been impossible to know what does and doesn’t get past that sticky bubble gum and candy heart portcullis guarding her brain. Nuance is definitely not one of her strengths. Hearing only what she wants to hear is her superpower though. And this is her motto, guiding metric, and the level of gratitude one should apply at all times in every situation.

Certainly sometimes I have the “Fuck it, I’m taking the T” mindset of Rosie Ruiz. I wanna jump past the boring painful part and get to the goodies, of course I do. Yet giving up now feels like negating the last seven months. Also, science. My faith still lives in science. Enough to understand the long view required to get a grip on this virus. However, I’ve got it easy. I am not trying to manage a young family or a completely busted budget. Sebastian and I talk often about his career and how bleak things look right now. He loves background work and is good at it. Working on a set is all he wants to do. Movies, TV, video, all of it is on hiatus. Especially at his level. So. I do my best not to complain about how I am serving my time in house jail nor be too, too judgy about anyone else’s need to get out and DO SOMETHING, but I have a severe cost-benefit ratio and if you stray too far from the science I will get snitty. Really snitty.

I don’t know who that is, btw. If it’s mock-worthy please go easy. Thanks.

I packed a picnic and we went leaf peeping yesterday.

This is quite possibly the White-est pic ever. Those are Mick’s first non-obligatory khakis. Free will, free range khakis! And a billed cap! Another first. My honey the honky has taken my trip to oncology quite to heart. He’s on the inspect/watch/biopsy slog too. Fortunately we are of the age to don the badges of Empty Nest Suburban White People. We do not dick around about sun protection and wear un-ironic hats. And supportive sneakers. Our fabrics breathe. We road trip like Hobbits. Took-ish enough to go. Baggins enough to do it comfortably with good breakfasts and clean inns.

Mick’s on vacation this week. The weather’s gorgeous. Perfect for the kind of putzing around he’s been needing. A happy mix of chores and fun, and even a lie-in or two. I’m doing my bit with the meals. Not always fancy and not all piggy either. Respecting the athlete who’s torn around this end of the county twice so far this week. He moans, but I’m glad he has the road tires on his bike. The thick knobbly mountain bike tires lure him off into the buffer zone around Stewart Airport and despite the fierce lime green dominating his riding kit the buffer’s a dumb place to be during hunting season.

The pic is from last spring. The trees are still full and beginning to roar with color.

Same view. No Mick. 3 minutes ago.

As expected a 1,000 years of genetic memory rose up with the turn of the season and demanded I get gone. And jaunting around yesterday confirmed I’m good for about 2 hours/ 2.5 max. And then I want to be home. So much for putting my boots on the road, my face to the wind, and letting fate choose my path. Went to Rite-Aid and the post office? Yeah, I’m good. Adventure time is over. Bra off! Bathrobe on. A quick doom-scroll. Maybe two (or three hours). Feel ocular fluid begin to congeal in fire of moral fury and switch over to the soothing coolness of BBC Earth or that Welch guy who grows the leeks in buckets.

Managing Your Mood Through Mindful Media Consumption

First the kid and now the hubs. I’ve shooed them off but my attention is broken. Time to feed the animals.

Much love, ~LA

Fragility Is My Strength

I got into a fight today at the grocery and I want to get this down as clearly as I can before ego and writer’s brain make this into a better story with good narrative flow and me being a shining hero.

I was scared. Not so much to get into a kerfuffle but that I might actually slap the guy. That’s how angry and frustrated I was. My voice shook and tears gushed but I didn’t back away and I didn’t raise my smacking hand even though the satisfaction of giving that shithead a good one right across his smirk would have been bliss. Seriously. To backhand that twerp across his filthy-mouthed ugly smirky phiz as he wholly deserved would have paid for much of the last few years’ heartbreak and fury.

I am laughing at myself because once again I’ve seen I will lay waste when faced with injustice for others but find it so goddamn hard to just speak for myself.

He was breathing on the deli clerks! And the food! Other people’s, innocent people’s food!

I was at the deli having a nice convo with one of the two young women serving the counter. As she hustled up my order here came Naked Face. Conning his head around waiting for someone to say something. I hated to oblige him, but I realized yesterday that I am sick to death of hiding my fear and anger so as not to feed the trolls.

I am no longer ignoring ANYTHING! So what that it scratches their itch to cause liberal tears? Liberal tears are exactly what the country needs. And our righteous anger. And the pure scalding of plain old fashioned disgust. They ‘win’ if I cry and yell? So fucking what? Being bigger, going higher, giving good face, fuck that noise!

I am finished with acting like I don’t care. I am a rational, loving human, a functioning member of society, and a decent person. I am totally over pretending to be blase so as not to stroke the egos of these pissants! They want anger and fighting and chaos? Good. I’m going to fucking give it to them. In spades. So should you.

Enough. Really. Outrage and disgust and an absolute REFUSAL to accept any of this crap as ‘normal’ is what we ALL need to be doing. Look, we’re screwed no matter what so I say bring it.

“Can’t win against bullies. Don’t feed the trolls. Don’t dignify their bullshit with a response. Turn the other cheek. Ignore them and they’ll get bored and go away. It only validates them if you say something. Bullies love attention, just act like they’re invisible.”

BULLSHIT! Nuh uh.

I am calling them on their shit. And I am saying what I know is right. Not looking to score points, those shit-stains aren’t smart enough to score things according to convention, decency, and civic responsibility – they are garbage and I am not pretending they’re not anymore.

Yes, I am going to sneer. Yes, I am going to speak up. Yes, I am going voice my humanity and be honest about the pain I am in because of the bad behavior of some. I am through with pretending what they do isn’t outrageous! I am beyond niceties like ignoring bad things so as not to gratify the shitheads.

I AM ANGRY!

I AM HURT!

And I refuse to accede to the supposed ‘wise’ non-engagement policy any longer.

My tears are not a liability, my tears make me human. They are the physical manifestation of my normalcy. I will not hide them nor apologize for them. The truer question is: “Where are your tears?” Are you so lost in your gluttony of swinish behavior that you’ve forgotten how to be a person? All you are now is a pig? And you’re proud of this? Wow, that is gross.

So. Naked Face at the deli counter. Finally the other clerk asked him what he’d like. And I (completely and rightly upset) said to the clerk waiting on me, “She has to serve that ASSHOLE?” The nice clerk nodded and we both shot a sympathetic glance at the clerk waiting on Naked Face. That’s when he began to smirk. And when the clerk held up a slice for his approval he leaned forward and deliberately COUGHED. At the deli meat on the slicer. At the poor clerk. To get a rise out me? Absolutely.

I obliged him. “Yo, put a mask on, butthead.”

“Fuck YOU! I don’t have to do shit, you fat bitch!”

“Do you not understand science and the law, imbecile?”

“I understand you’re a dumb bitch and a sheep!”

“I hope you die. Nazi scum! Shithead! Stop coughing on the goddamn food!”

He laughed and I gripped the handle of my cart so tightly my knuckles still ache. While he had a fun fest of jabbering crap I felt my mask wilt under a torrent of tears. A manager appeared at my elbow. She asked after my safety and then spoke to Naked Face reiterating Hannaford’s mask policy and inviting him up front to where the free masks are. He refused and called her a stupid bitch. She kept her temper far better than I. I was looking over the manager’s shoulder and hissing invective at Naked Face. He responded with more profanity and coughing. To which the manager said she would now call the state police because Naked Face was threatening public health. He folded and slunk away muttering about ‘his rights’. Paused at the front entrance and raised a fist like Judd Nelson’s Bender and shouted, “Trump 2020!”

The manager nodded at me before going outside to make sure Naked Face didn’t try anything else stupid. The deli clerks gave thumbs up and nods and big smiles their masks couldn’t hide.

I stumbled off completely shaken but also fiercely happy. Found an empty aisle. I shook. Cried. Had to change my mask. But despite my upset a warmth flowed out from my heart. While I shopped the shakes receded and the warm feeling grew.

Honestly? I bought A LOT of comfort food. Ben and Jerry’s. Kiwi fruit. Maple-cured ham. Skittles. A six-pack of Stella. (And if you understood how much Mick loathes alcohol you’d know this was a Big Deal.) Sirloin cuts were on sale I grabbed several. Sebastian’s favorite goodies went in. (Hellooo Little Debbie!) I tossed in English muffins and really, really good jam. (It’s made with fruits and berries raised and jarred by monks across the Hudson almost exactly as the crow flies from here.) I know I tried to offset the ugliness with deliciousness. I did a good job and am smiling over the yummy meals I’ll be making for my guys.

Honestly? I’m glad I spoke up. Not that Naked Face will quit his bullshit or that I actually saved anyone from COVID by cutting off his big blustery fake coughing. However I did speak up for decency. For behaving as though others matter. I spoke up for common sense. And science. And that everyday people just want some damn safety and peace.

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Before the 'incident'.

A post shared by LAinNY (@lainny63) on Oct 1, 2020 at 1:20pm PDT

Love you lots! ~LA

“Oh Rocky!”

Meeting Tim Curry was complicated. (Story takes place some time ago.) It was terrible and wonderful to see how much he was still there, but he was stuck behind the physical toll the stroke had taken on his ability to speak. Frustrating for all involved. Spent quite a bit of time just waiting at his appearance booth while he was off for a midday rest. Not because there’d be a first-come-first-served scrum when Tim came back – the photo ops are reserved in advance and carefully timed – I was simply too pooped from being too hot. The quiet corner where the booth was seemed an oasis. Sitting cross-legged on the cool smooth concrete floor I eavesdropped and watched the stories go by and wondered why they call these events ‘Cons’ when they should be billed as ‘Schvitzing With Nerds’. I would pay double the entry fee if I were guaranteed a quiet room with comfy seating and the a/c jacked all the way. A VIP room for older women – ‘You Must Be THIS Menopausal For Entry’.

Tell you what, I will lose my shit if I see any kind of Trek convention before there is a real vaccine and recovery protocols that work. You cannot, you MAY not be a Trekkie and not ‘believe’ in science. WTF, dude. Science doesn’t care whether you ‘believe’ or not. If you’re so sure you get to choose which science is real then turn off your gravity. Go ahead, I’ll wait. I’d tell you to go walk off the edge of the Earth but then your mask-less ass would be on the loose, a one imbecile super-spreader event as you circumnavigated the globe. A dim-witted Magellan who went all the way around and never did find the ‘edge’.

Both of my kids are science guys. Atheists. Rather shouty about it as teenagers. Each of them spent high school wearing a series of ever-snarkier t-shirts arguing for rational thought. Alex leaned more toward social issues while Sebastian’s main beef was with religion. My younger son is revolted by what he sees as an abdication of personal responsibility. Seb needs neither the bribe of Heaven nor the threat of Hell to be a decent human. He says that. I say he’s a good guy because he’s got a good heart. And I dread the day he offers it to someone and they are careless with it. And him.

The skies are clear today. I had a bad moment on Thursday when I realized I was smelling a fire that was 3,000 miles away. Bloodhound nose recognized it even as I told myself it was a neighbor’s wood stove or burn barrel. Losing my sense of smell is my biggest worry about COVID.

“Really, LA? Over being dead?”

Fine. Not dead. But do you have any idea what would happen to my cooking if I can’t use my nose? I don’t use recipes! No sense of smell means no sense of taste too, but I cook my guys lots of stuff I don’t eat and without my nose…oy. I have a sophisticated and educated shnozz and it is boss in my kitchen. To have to navigate without it is a scary, scary thought.

I really don’t care for WP’s new editing. It doesn’t seem to offer any advantage to the previous set-up. However I am a slow adopt/adapt person. My approach these days is much less frightened, I try to think less about what I will get wrong and more about investigating, but I’m simply not impressed with changing things just to add a gee-gaw or two. I have a favorite knife and drink my coffee with plain milk. My alarm clock is 42 years old. When in doubt I reread Stephen King. My house is 110 and the rug in the living room is 25 years older than that. I don’t have a fetish for antiques, all my things still do their jobs and I don’t see any point in replacing them just because there’s a newer kind. Though the living room rug is getting threadbare. When the traffic patterns finally wear through I will take the rug to a binder and have the edges trimmed and bound into runners. I like to think that the long dead Turkish guy who wove the rug would be glad to know his carpet is precious enough to rework so we can still keep some of it even all these years later.

The combined catastrophes have stripped me down. Stripped a lot of us down. Our conversations are stripped down too. We’re offering each other a place of truth and trust because shit’s too real to waste time on putting up a front. Please don’t misunderstand! The pretty parts we put on social media are true also. Joy is good. Sharing kittens and crochet projects and pics of guys in kilts, yes please. Your kid’s drawing? Your boyfriend’s terrible haircut? All the life we put out there is good. And if it’s a bit curated I see it more as setting a nice table for company than it is being false. Dig? Yet it has been such a relief to shamble in wearing the same clothes for the third day, mild intoxicant in hand, and speak without editing. I love you guys.

The daybed on the porch is shot. Okay for a nap, maybe. I slept out there for three nights (cold air, crickets, trees whispering) and it messed me up. Gimping around half the day until my hips and knees agreed to work properly. The mattress is not sproingy at all anymore. Back upstairs to my tomb of a room. Trading murmuring trees for working knees. Such are the compromises of age.

Good night, dear ones. ~LA

Too Long

This has been rattling around as my go-to entry for a couple weeks and I’m sick of looking at it.

Premise: Randomly stop and jot down whatever’s in my top mind at the moment. I’ll be checking in with the Mind Husky too.

Oh, about something in the previous entry – the reason I am so adamant about finding the right song on the radio is because left on its own the mental jukebox is not to be trusted. To wit: current earworm…

I dislike criticizing young women. Joining the endless policing of everything they do feels wrong! But goddamn…vocal fry irks me so much! Take the Try Wives podcast. Please. I truly like these women. Talented. Funny. And listening for more than 5 minutes my stomach is anxious and my poor half-deaf ears are very upset. There’s something in the gargle and loooong drawn out words combo of vocal fry that makes me impatient. The drop in pitch is all I hear and it hurrrrrtz-suh. (Phonetic rendering) In some ways vocal fry is less irksome than uptalk, uptalking just sounds dopey. At least vocal fry with the lowering pitch and dramatic pausing there’s some heft and gravitas. But if everything you say sounds like this, uh no.

*Interesting observation: Before his transition my nephew’s vocal fry was maddening! His rasping pauses were like 70’s guitar solos. Endless. Now after a couple years on T that fry is gone. Really. Testosterone changes stuff you wouldn’t immediately think of. Since T his speech stripped itself of all feminine affectations and accents. He’s brisk, direct, and his attention span is way shorter with conversations where he doesn’t do 90% of the talking. Something he admits, btw. 

When we talk these days I desperately clamp down on all my unforgivably nosy questions. Not about anatomy because yuck. Imagine asking a cis person about their genitals. “Hey, Sally, is your puss one of those wrinkly ruffly ones or is it more of an O’Keeffe?”

Seriously, yuck. Having fought his battles to get here the last pain I’d put my nephew through is to demand he play compare and contrast of female and male mindsets. The whole point of transitioning is to be free and authentic in your skin, outlook, morals, everything. Asking him revisit and interpret from the perspective of someone he isn’t anymore is so unfair. But as a language person and a student of human behavior there’s so much I’d like his perspective on.

Speaking of teeth from the past, I am having a tough time about Date Night. Wednesday is the one evening a week when Mick and I are alone in the house and (more importantly) awake together. It’s our Date Night and was even before COVID. Formerly we went out. Usually to the diner or the buffet. In quarantine Date Night is homebound and that’s what is flipping me out. My terrible mother used to cook special date night meals for her various and multitudinous beaux. And between courses would call me from my bedroom where I’d been banished to come clear up and set out the next course. On nights when she’d fed me and Gidget a PBJ or a bowl of cereal, btw. I loathed the discrepancy of foodstuffs. I hated being both serving and scullery maid. Dig this, my mother actually offered me their steak bones to gnaw on! Like a dog!

I don’t need to deep dive into why my table is open to EVERYONE. And why I only serve meals which can be shared out equally. So having a ‘special’ meal just for me and Mick gives me hives. But how else to have a romantic meal with my guy unless I serve it here when he and I are alone? The world is closed!

Recently Mick told me how often he puts my eyes on. I was startled. WWLAD? Really? The idea of being anyone’s moral guidepost or guru upsets me. Even if it’s my own husband.

I am no one to emulate. 

‘Feet of clay: noun. a weakness or hidden flaw in the character of a greatly admired or respected person.’

Friends, my feet of clay go right up to my armpits. I know this. And it saddens and scares to think someone might toddle off and get hurt because of me. Okay, sure, nobody will rob and bank and insist I told them to. I am very anti-bank robbery. This I can be 100% about.

Here’s the funny thing – Mick lives with me and is quite aware of the real me. The one with the messy office and seeming inability to finish ANYTHING. How I always forget our anniversaries. And how thanks to five months in quarantine I’ve turned into Divine.

(Edna Turnblad is my spirit animal.)

And yet here’s my husband insisting that running things past the LA-o-meter in his head helps him be a better person.

I wonder if my aversion stems from not wanting any more responsibility. Probably. I’ve gnawed loose from a whole lot of unnecessary crud I’d encased myself in and I’m enjoying not being on the spot for every single thing in the entire universe. Helps not having a husband who puts me on the spot for everything as Michael used to. It also helps that my children are grown.

Do you think the people who moved into tiny houses regret it now? Casa Sage isn’t especially palatial but we each have space of our own and can put a closed door between us and the other two. For all that I adore people and am pretty free with my affection there’s a large part of me that’s solitary as an oyster. Without a private (and inviolate!) place of my own I go starkers.

I did go off my chump a couple days ago. Lost in a sea of fury. The magnitude of the dirty that’s been done to us! Not just Trump, though he’s enabled the worst of it. It’s the constant beatdown by the terrible ones. The ugly souls, the filthy mouths, the bitter hearts, the absolute shrunken poison spirits! And how these brats have dragged down everything. Everything is held hostage by their shittiness. I don’t kid myself that there was a mythical ‘Life was better’ time, at least not one that included everyone. But I do remember being able to go to the store without a haz-mat suit and if someone was blocking the aisle you could say, “Excuse me” and they’d move. On my last trip to Hannaford’s a guy with his mask in his breast pocket answered my request he please move with, “Hold your water, chubs.”

Right? So I woke up just crazy angry. The chubs thing was the final straw. The total breakdown of civility had done me in. I was/am so sick of shit! I am sick of it! I stomped out to the porch and told Mick I was going to the store and when he asked why since I’d just been the day before I hissed, “I am going to find some fuck in a MAGA hat and make him EAT THE GODDAMN THING!“

Mick was utterly nonplussed. The color came and went on his face. (His many blushes on our first date were charming.) Gawping he finally said, “Listen to yourself! Sweetie, no. Violence? Baby, I know you better than that. You are 100% Do No Harm.” I howled I didn’t care anymore. I was done being a schmuck who felt bad if she forgot to use her turn signal in a world full of monsters who think murder is the appropriate response to speaking up for justice! Germs were the least of the deadly filth out there!

Then I cried. And cried. And cried.

After a while of sitting quietly and holding my hand Mick made me tea and mopped my face. He chuckled when I grumbled he only stopped me so he didn’t have to face his buddies at the jail when he came to bail me out.

No pithy summation, just know I love you, ~LA

Thought Pond

Remember when Winnie the Pooh got stuck in Rabbit’s doorway?

I feel like that. (And not just from quarantine poundage fears of not getting out of my office.) Wedged into Rabbit’s front door Pooh makes amiable chat with whoever comes by but isn’t free to go search out companionship on his own. Between visitors Pooh is lonely. Me too. Since it’s right there taking up space Rabbit uses Pooh’s rear half as a drying rack for tea towels. Pooh doesn’t mind, at least some of him is being useful. Also me on the days I can whomp up the juice to do a bunch of meal prep or flatten Dish Mountain right down to an empty sink. Meh, I’m here anyway and it’s nice to be useful.

 

Mick was good to have done it for so long, but I took over the grocery shopping. I drive right past my old workplace. Still can’t. When I am properly inoculated I am marching into Shoprite and hugging the shit out of every single person in there. Old friends, strangers, customers, delivery people. Everybody. Until then I’m doing my marketing at a wee Hannaford a couple towns over. The drive is easy. I indulge in a frenzy of channel hopping on the Sirius always hunting for THE song of the moment and mood. Annoying to others so I relish the solitary drive. Finding just the right song pays off with a squirt of happiness hormones, even if the song is a weepy and I’m running teary boogers and singing along in the cracked howl of a crated puppy, I’m happy.

I meant it when I said my new grocery is wee. I am grateful for Hannaford’s niche strategy, their thing way before COVID. Their shtick is their offerings are curated. They like to imply Hannaford’s won’t waste your valuable time with a slew of inferior brands so they only carry a select few brands which are the best…duh. Somehow paying $8 for a mozzarella log is a status thing. To me it pisses me off because I know the same product is on sale every other week at Shoprite for $3.99. BUT the trade-off is the store I shop is quiet. It’s clean. Fresh stock is always well within date. And decisions are blessedly simple. Instead of 80 brands and varieties of mustard there’s 4. House brand or French’s. Yellow or brown. Easy-peasy. The customers are the usual mix of good, indifferent, and lunatic, but the aisles are never crowded. I’m a polite and patient shopper so I can’t really judge the crew except to say they are polite and any standoff-ishness is due to masking and distancing.

“Wow, thanks for that vivid critique of a grocery store I will never go to, LA!”

Shushie you. What I’m telling you is I am putting my physical and emotional well-being ahead of the ‘right thing’. My whole life I’ve challenged myself. “I must make the MOST moral choice! Nothing else will do!” You know why I can’t be bothered over what other people think? It’s because I’m too busy not living up to my own standards, thankyouverymuch.

Being barricaded in my house for five months has left me with a lot of time to ponder. I ask myself questions –

• Why is the MOST moral choice always the one that leaves me MOST depleted?
• Am I truly that much of a martyr?
• Why yes I am!
• Girlfriend, you gonna cut the shit now that you see this so clearly?

Gosh I hope so.

In my pondering I figured out the way past a sticky spot with my husband. And it was on me to change. I finally mustered up the courage to really trust him. Let me illuminate with an anecdote.

Last week Mick went to his mom’s on his day off leaving me to sleep in. Kidney pain had been a 9 on and off for days. I’m currently making a new bunch of fresh water pearls and the little dears tend to tumble into the U-bend of my ureter that Khan said he’d fix but didn’t. I was miserable.

Around 2:00 Mick calls from Mom’s, he’s about to leave – did I want anything? From my muzzy greeting it was obvious he’d woken me up and immediately his voice goes tense and annoyed. Here is where I’d been misreading Mick’s tone. Martyr Girl would hear that and begin babbling apologies. Napping! So sorry! He’d get really annoyed and I’d panic and down it went. He’s hurt and mad, I’m hurt and mad, neither of us knows why.

I feel dopey it took so long to put down all my defensive armor and really listen to Mick. Believe all the times he’s told me my happiness and well-being are paramount to him. My friends, Mick was annoyed with himself. He’d woken me, what an oaf. We’re two of a kind – failing our own imposed standards all the time. Here is where I changed the station. Bam! The right song! Instead of apologizing I said, “You are so thoughtful! How lucky am I to have such a nice husband?” It took a few repetitions, Mick was still yelling at himself, but when he finally heard me he relaxed. It was so simple without all my murky stuff globbed on top. All he wanted was a little reassurance and my order from the diner. My guy does NOT get his jollies making me feel like shit. Quite the opposite and I’m glad I understand this and allow myself to snuggle into his love. Finally.

Will I get hurt? Possibly. But stiff-arming my husband to preemptively keep him far from my ouchie places is wrong. It leaves a space for gremlins to get in.

And really, isn’t 2020 horrible enough already?

 

Love you lots! ~LA

 

I Forgot The Title

I am always surprised by how tee-nouncy AOC’s voice is. Not a bad thing, just seems at odds with how fierce everything else about her is.

My office smells wonderful. Did laundry yesterday. Saving the guys any confusion the rule is if it goes above my waist it comes upstairs and hung in my office to air-dry. My fabulous son once asked if this rule included ‘those giant granny panties’. I rapped back, “Oh? My granny panties are funny? Mental picture, bub…Mom in a thong!” That learnt him.

Raise your hand if you hate your chin/neck area in pics? Let’s see…one, two, five, seventeen, eleventy-four hundred…infinity. Everyone. So let’s call a truce and make peace. Double-chins, pelican neck, jowls – I’m currently rocking the whole trifecta. What used to be on my face is sliding under my chin and piling there like a bad sock that rides down and bunches up in your shoe. The dopey thing is I don’t notice anyone else’s. Except really doofy ones on purpose.

The other day Daryl sent me a couple pics showing me her haircut, the first since January. The cut was cute and it was so great to see my friend’s sweet face. Just down the road yet always out of reach. Then before I could tell her so here came the disclaimer and apology for her ‘old lady’ neck. Grrr. I wouldn’t care if her neck folds laid on her chest like an ascot, you know? But I get her anguish. I have it too. I usually stop the self-deprecating apologia text but I think it.

The thing is if everyone’s stuff slides down like tired socks then isn’t that normal? And if it’s normal why all the embarrassment and shame? Perhaps if I had a really noisy growth on my forehead that randomly let out huge burps I’d be embarrassed. And not so much that I had a noisy growth, but that it was rude.

So. No more apologizing. No more feeling down on ourselves because our human body responds to gravity and chemistry. I’m going to work on this. Feels like a necessary permission I need to give myself.

‘Let myself go’? The only thing I want to let go of is the last remnants of the bullshit demand I deny myself anything that isn’t about looking 30 forever. 57, bay-bee. Imma do what I want! #1 – I will never, ever don another pair of Spanx and hell yes I want dessert.

And get back to me with those arguments about my health when there’s no pandemic and the North Pole isn’t on fire.

Mick and I had a wee tiffy this morning about my being part of Wall of Moms. He’s scared spitless something might happen to me. I understand. I’m not wild about the idea of something happening to me either. I explained I was there to learn. In Portland the WoM is there to support the Black protesters and help guard them from Trump’s goons. There’s many, many takes and BIG feelings about purpose and methods and intent. Much of the feed is simple info on where and when and soliciting donations. How-to’s on tear gas and pepper spray removal. Woven in is this amazing discussion about white savior-ism, social debt, and honest anguish about where the hell have we been all these years? That last one is tough because I sort of thought I had been here but realize I hadn’t been in any significant way. This is a lot more embarrassing than my jowls. One is collagen and the other is character. Ouch.

Listening and learning is where I’m at. My brain and heart are delighted with all this activity. So many new ideas! Not all of them are great. Priorities conflict. The situation in the street changes all the time. Nothing about change is tidy. Nor is the inside of my head. Sherlock had a mind palace, I have a mind Husky.

Full of antics and surprises. Never know where she might go or what she’ll drag back. She likes to chase scent trails, that one. Heedlessly. This happens a lot.

I don’t really mind I’m on the roof, but I am really irritated because I can’t remember why I went up there in the first place.

I miss earrings. I know some people manage earrings and a mask just fine. I am not one of them. The mask and glasses combo is enough. No point in wearing ear decor at home, even on the rare occasions I get out of my housecoat to wear real clothes, I have headphones on. All day. With the central air broken my entire house drones with cooling devices. Window units. Oscillating fans. Ceiling fans. I can’t hear a fucking thing anyone says. (Same thing in public. Can’t lipread masks. I nod a lot.) My cans keep me from going bonkers from the droning. Plus providing sound on the computer. Of course I use subtitles too. But who doesn’t? Even if you’re not hard of hearing.

 

Love you lots! ~LA